Lovin' the leaves

Fall has quickly approached and it is Faith and I's favorite time a year. We sing songs, dance with pretend leaves and yesterday we made it outside to jump and roll in the real leaves. Why do we love Fall so much? I guess it has to do with the beauty that surrounds us for 1 week. The leaves of red, orange and yellow remind me just how great our God is. So before the rain arrived we headed outside to rake up some leaves followed by some good ol' running and jumping and kicking of the leaves. Faith played hide and seek in the leaves as I covered her up and pretended not to know where she was. Hopefully today will be a good day to head to the park. My favorite is the one with trails and the animals on the farm. Maybe they will be giving hay rides today. Anyways....we love the Fall. The mountain in our back yard is at it's peak now. It is just such a wonderful time of the year.

One Small Voice

Have you ever heard of Jack Hartman? He is a singer/songwriter of children's music. I was introduced to his music recently at a seminar. I loved one of his songs so much I decided that was the song "One Small Voice" that I was going to teach all the children at school for our Christmas concert. The first time Faith heard it she loved it. That evening she asked to sing it over and over again a total of 8 times. A simple song that starts with one child singing followed by more children on the second verse and the rest of the group on the last verse. I hear Faith's one small voice sing quietly from the back seat and my eyes tear up. Such a sweet voice to hear singing this song. I am reminded of just how small she is. She talks so big and acts so big but inside she is just this one small voice. Here is the link to the song clip if you want to hear a piece of it. Copy and paste the link.
http://www.songsforteaching.com/jackhartmann/s/1smallvoice.mp3

Reading

Faith is at it again. She has received her sight word books and has jumped right into them. After helping her sound out the two words of the book she has taken to reading it all by herself. What is even more exciting is that she loves it. Finally, all of those hours of reading has paid off. Some people just think that a child like Faith is just the same as others. Yes, she is but so much of her is different. I see her everyday at school and I see her independance. I am currently evaluating my four year olds in class and Faith's pre literacy is so far above and before a normal four year old it is amazing. As I did investigated into understanding more about our learning styles yesterday at a seminar I realized that her learning style is word smart and music smart. Although I am first music smart and then nature and picture smart, it is interesting that we both have a same learning style. And that is the reason she learns so easy with me. I learned yesterday at my Applebaum Training that I child needs to be exposed to roughly 1000 books before they can start reading for themselves. I think we probably hit the 1000 mark long ago and she just kept going. Thanks to Grace for her Disney Fairy books. She has finished three of them and is now reading and listening to Fira and the Full Moon. Here is the video of Faith reading "Go, Go"